Thursday Thirteen #9

(This image provided by Samulli.)

Last week, I took some time writing my Thursday 13 post, and then I headed over to the group website to post my link. That's when I first learned that Megan, one of the women in charge of the group website, was getting married last weekend, and everyone was encouraged to post wedding-themed 13 lists. I didn't want to scrap the post I'd already written, so I decided to save the wedding-themed list for this week. So here are 13 Things About Our Wedding.

1. We knew going into it that the date we picked wasn't going to be overly convenient. We were married on December 21, 2007. Yes, that was the Friday before Christmas. But we were engaged in April, and the Archdiocese of Denver requires couples to be engaged for at least 8 months...so that put us in December. And I didn't want to wait until the end of the school year, so we were married on the first day of winter break.

2. It snowed on our wedding day. I woke up to sunny, blue skies, but the snow started falling by noon. By the time the storm was over, the town where the wedding was held got about 8 inches of snow.

3. Because of the afore-mentioned snowstorm, our ceremony was delayed by about 15 minutes to allow more people to arrive. As it was, a number of our guests were late to the ceremony, and a few of them didn't make it to the ceremony at all and went straight to the reception site. And yet almost every one of our guests made it eventually. I think two couples decided not to try the slick roads.

4. The girls and I had planned on getting to the church around 10:00am to start decorating and to get ready there. We were informed at the rehearsal (the night before the wedding) that we weren't allowed in the church until 3:00pm. I had to reschedule our photographer, florist, and hairstylist via phone on our way to the rehearsal dinner. But everything worked out. My hairstylist came to my apartment instead of the church, and the others just came a little later than planned.

5. Shawn's brother (the Best Man) forgot my wedding band at Shawn's house (which was about 45 minutes away from the church in good weather). Fortunately, Shawn's landlords were good family friends, and they went to his house and found my ring and brought it to the church. They arrived about 2 minutes before we said our vows and exchanged rings.

6. We had a full Catholic Mass for our wedding, despite the fact that most of our friends and none of my family is Catholic. I thought it was beautiful and very meaningful to us.

7. Shawn and I saw each other before the wedding. When we first saw each other that day, we were completely dressed for the wedding, and it was just us and our photographer in the sanctuary at the church. I really liked that we did this...it gave us a few minutes together to just enjoy the moment, and then we didn't waste lots of time after the ceremony taking pictures.

8. We took pictures in the snow. Yes, it was cold...I was wearing a strapless dress. We actually were standing on a white blanket to keep our feet and clothes more or less dry. But the pictures are absolutely stunning!

9. We didn't use flowers at the church. We hung lanterns on each pew instead of using flowers there, and the only decor on the altar were candles and two tiny pine trees decorated with red ribbons. It was beautiful and inexpensive!10. I was sick on our wedding day. For most of the day, I was kinda drugged up on cough syrup and Sudafed. I was told that our food at the reception was really good (and I remember our taste test), but I couldn't really taste most of it that night.

11. We had two cakes. One was just a "normal" tiered wedding cake from a grocery store. It was tilting the entire night, but I didn't even notice it. The other cake was the "groom's cake." It was "sculpted" to look like a rock face we have climbed together, and there was a mini bride and groom climbing it. The chocolate cake was flavored with Guinness and the filling was flavored with Bailey's Irish Cream!

12. Our first dance was to Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawio'Ole.
13. Despite all the little hitches and hiccups, our wedding day was the most wonderful and beautiful day, and it is hands' down the happiest day of my life to date. :)